The Trespass (20 page)

The country Coopers were, as always, overpowered by the oppression of the house; once inside they spoke more quietly, aware of the servants everywhere. Asobel bounced on the bed in the room she was to share with Augusta: pronounced it horrible and hard, but she only whispered it very quietly and she kept looking at the flaring gas lamps, listening to the hiss they made.

And Harriet sat for a moment in her room.

She heard the grooms and the horses in the mews, and the dull sound of all the carriages in the distance. The smell of meat and cabbage and old cigars wafted up the stairs as if she had never been away. There was a knock at the door: she tensed at once. A maid entered and gave a small nervous curtsey.

‘Is there anything you want, Miss Harriet? Shall I assist you to dress for dinner?’

‘No thank you.’ Harriet looked at the girl in puzzlement.

‘I’m your new maid, I’m called Lucy. I began work here the day you left so you probably don’t remember me, I forgot the milk on the first day but I’m a quick learner and I hope I please you,’ and she bobbed again. She looked about twelve, and anxious, and Harriet remembered: Lucy was the maid who sang to Quintus.

‘Has my sister asked you to be my new maid?’ Mary had not said.

‘No, ma’am. Sir Charles, ma’am.’

‘I see.’ (She looked so young to be one of her father’s sentinels.) ‘Well, Lucy, I imagine I shall not be here for some weeks yet.’

Now the maid looked puzzled, but knew better than to speak. ‘Very well, Miss Harriet.’

And Harriet was alone again, listening to the sounds, and smelling the smells, of the city.

An hour later the Right Honourable Sir Charles Cooper, MP, arrived home; everybody had dressed and the evening meal was immediately served. Quintus the dog and Harriet had just discovered each other; Quintus became deeply over-excited, and had to be removed. Sir Charles said a long grace and then began to carve, footmen bent over wine glasses, food was served by an array of maids. Although Mary spoke warmly to her cousins and her aunt, the Cooper women (even Lucretia) only murmured politely, the conversation was dominated by men’s voices. Sir Charles’s voice dominated most of all; every now and then his hooded eyes took in his younger daughter, who was home again. And who would not be leaving.

Before dessert, his face flushed, he stood in his place at the end of the table, pouring more wine before he spoke. ‘Well, Edward,’ he began. Everybody was silent and attentive. There was something about Sir Charles Cooper that made people pay attention: the leonine face, the hooded, blank eyes, the mane of silver hair; and something else: an air of barely concealed danger, or violence, or rage. The dining room was very quiet.

‘Her Majesty’s government, if I may say so, has not had much interest in this “emigration” business. Therefore I think we have not been careful enough about the type of person we are allowing to leave the country; I fear they have not, in some cases, given a good impression of the British. And it seems to be costing us a great deal of money, sending troops to far-flung places that we have decided to interest ourselves in, to quell the natives. However. We cannot, of course, stand by – indeed it is totally out of the question that we should allow ourselves to be humbled by savages. And we are now taking some steps to regulate the whole business of emigration. I am glad that people of Edward’s calibre are grasping the nettle: who knows what treasures, what gold, what raw materials men like him may still find! You, Edward, must remember that we, the British people, are the guardians of civilisation – our spirit and our influence is felt all over the world and when I say our spirit, I mean our spirit of adventure, and of moral excellence, and of endeavour, and enterprise, and refinement. We are the greatest race on earth, and the proudest; our influence stretches to every part of the globe and you must never forget that you are crossing the oceans in that magnificent tradition.’ Sir Charles raised his glass. ‘Under the influence of Edward, and British men like him, lesser races of savage or alien men will see that the British Empire which embraces them is wise, strong, industrious and benign. God save Her Majesty.’

Under the gas chandelier that seemed to Asobel to hold hundreds of soft dancing lights the assembled company rose and drank to Queen Victoria. Sweetmeats were then served, the ladies retired while the gentlemen drank port, and when they joined the ladies Sir Charles commanded his younger daughter to play ‘Lo, the Beams of Early Morning’, followed by ‘Yes! I Have Dared to Love Thee’, on the piano in the drawing room where, although the fire had been burning all day, the ladies pulled their shawls about them, feeling the chill in the air.

TWELVE

November in London. Rain overnight had turned the roads and pavements to slush; by dawn a dark, dank, unpleasant cloud had settled over everything and the streetlights could hardly be seen. They had to leave before dawn: the vehicles came round to the front of the Bryanston Square house like shadows; petticoats disappeared into carriages and horses stumbled through the fog, sending up great spurts of mud and excrement in their wake as they turned towards Blackfriars.

There the women huddled nervously under umbrellas, eyed the crowded and jostling early-morning river. They boarded one of the new steamboats to Gravesend: people crowded on to the deck to say goodbye to Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the ladies were then handed into the saloon; all the luggage was loaded on to colliers and small boats behind them. Edward anxiously watched his worldly goods sinking low into the water. Inside in the saloon cabin Lucretia discreetly swallowed heroic amounts of laudanum, Asobel insisted on looking intently at her globe for most of the journey and refused to speak, refused to be roused by views of London from the river. There was a great deal of weeping as people who were to sail away said goodbye to London, not knowing if they were to see it ever again, not that they could see so much of it now as the fog would not lift and their own boat added to the smoke and the smell. Harriet, sitting next to Mary on a wooden seat, watched all the leaving people carefully, wondered (as she had wondered about Edward) how they
felt.
She stared out through the fog; she could not imagine how the river traffic: the passenger boats, the barges, the colliers, the small vehicles rowed by men from one side of the river to the other, did not all collide in the yellow odorous mist that engulfed them all. On the deck Edward stood with his father and his uncle and his cousins, all men together: the stink of the Thames came up to meet them as they were stopped for a moment near Deptford; Edward looked at the river in disgust. Through the fog and the rain boats passed, unspeakable things floated on the water, the smell rose, their boat floated among everything as it slowed for some reason, then moved forward once more.

‘Surely, sir,’ said Edward suddenly to his uncle, ‘the Thames should be cleaned.’

‘The tide cleans it,’ said Sir Charles shortly.

‘But the drains, the sewers, look, you can
see
the stuff flowing out when the tide is low like this. There, from that tannery. People drink this water.’

‘You don’t understand nature,’ said Sir Charles. ‘The water is cleaned by the tide,’ and he turned away from his nephew to his sons and lit a cigar, shielding his flame from the rain as the river slowly widened before them on their journey.

Gravesend, when they arrived at last, was like a circus. People and sailors and belongings were everywhere, tents and traders crowded together. Somehow Edward was found and embraced by his two travelling companions, Chambers and Lyle, and they excitedly followed the progress of their luggage: some for storage but as many pieces as possible to be squeezed into their cabin. Much luggage had been taken aboard nearer London; Edward briefly could not identify his own among all the boxes and furniture lying everywhere; his friends and some of the servants hurried about, tripping over ropes, dodging sailors. The rest of the family stared at the
Miranda
with various degrees of enthusiasm. The rain had stopped at last and sailors were unfurling ropes, and a very tall man, pointed out as the pilot, was preparing to come aboard to lead the
Miranda
downriver and out to the channel. The men and the younger women climbed aboard; Mary and Lucretia were among the group of women winched aboard on chairs: it had been suggested Lucretia stay on shore but she wished to see where her son would spend the next months and endured the winching bravely. They had to pass surly sailors swinging up rope ladders and swarms of poor-looking people carrying bundles of clothes who were travelling below, in steerage. At one point two pigs got loose from a pigpen on the main deck, and, perhaps having some idea of their fate when the ship was out at sea and fresh meat was called for (for the cabin passengers), they ran squealing loudly all over the ship, eluding the grabbing hands of sailors and passengers alike for quite some time. And Mary, staring below quickly and carefully as they passed, looked shocked and quite pale, murmured to Harriet that there must be almost no air for those people who were travelling steerage,
there are no windows down there at all,
she whispered.

They found the impossibly small cabin where the young men were to be ensconced but now the usually placid Edward was shouting and servants were carrying a trunk and trying to get it in through the door and Chambers was looking worried because his bed seemed to have disappeared. Things had to be nailed or screwed to the floor so that they would not move about the small space during the voyage, carpenters were called for everywhere but Edward had his own supply of nails and screws and hammers. Both Chambers’ and Lyle’s families were also trying to say goodbye, women clutching at arms, men trying to help with the luggage, upwards of twenty people trying impossibly to get inside the cabin and bumping in to others along the narrow corridor.

‘We must go to the dining saloon,’ said Sir Charles authoritatively. ‘The travellers can join us when their luggage is safely stowed.’

The dining saloon was as wide as the ship itself, but nevertheless seemed narrow and dark, the only light coming from small round windows. It was decorated for cabin passengers in the style to which they were accustomed: Greek arches, cornices, carpets, and high-backed, damask-covered chairs, cupids dallied with bows and arrows and primroses in each corner of the ceiling, but everything in miniature, as befitting the space. It was crowded with milling people; Lucretia, suddenly aware of the ship moving slightly beneath her, looked around wildly, said very, very nervously to her husband, ‘It is very
small
after all, to go on large oceans. Will Edward be
safe,
William, do you think?’

‘My dear Lucretia,’ said Sir Charles, ‘of course he will be safe. This is a British ship. After some earlier disasters all ships have to be surveyed and found seaworthy and certificated. And should something untoward happen to him let me assure you there is a surgeon on board. I have already spoken to the Captain and made him aware that Edward is a nephew of mine. He will be in good hands. These ships were once disease-infected hellholes, but that was long ago. We learnt a great deal from the early ships that went to Canada and the Government has made a great deal of difference now.’

‘What about the people below, Father?’ asked Mary. Harriet thought:
How pale she looks. She really does care what happens to those people she does not even know.

‘What about them?’ Through a tiny window Harriet saw a woman in a thin shawl clutching, with the rest of her bundles, some buddleia she had picked from a ragged bush at the dock’s edge, as if to take a little of England with her.

‘It would seem that they will be so crowded, there seem to be a great many of them, and there is no air.’

‘Do you realise that many of them are not even paying for their passage?’ said her father. ‘Or only part of it? They are going out as labourers. The New Zealand Company is wisely sending out a proportion of servants to meet the needs of the better classes who are emigrating, otherwise chaos would ensue of course. So these people have guaranteed employment when they arrive. What are your complaints?’

‘Just that it would seem to be a very uncomfortable four months. The
Miranda,
as we can see, is not a large ship. Will they have enough food and water?’

Sir Charles looked at his elder daughter with impatience. ‘I think it is not your business, Mary. Edward will be dining at the Captain’s table.’ As if in gratitude at Edward’s good fortune the doors of the dining room were suddenly held open by two liveried servants and to everyone’s astonishment Lord Ralph Kingdom and Sir Benjamin Kingdom entered, escorting between them their formidable mother, who was looking rather stunned, presumably from her winching aboard. Nevertheless with a regal air she bowed slightly to the Coopers when she saw them through the crowd that had parted at her majestic entrance, and allowed her sons to escort her onwards. Sir Charles Cooper, stepping forward to bow, did not miss the fact that Ralph Kingdom’s eyes immediately sought, and found, Harriet. He missed the fact that Benjamin Kingdom was looking at her also, although the latter might have appeared to be more interested in the construction of the dining saloon.

‘Ah, Charles!’ said Lady Kingdom. ‘We thought we might find you here on this—’ she paused for the precise words, ‘—tremendous emigratory occasion for your family. Where is Edward?’

Edward’s absence was explained, Uncle William introduced Mary and her two brothers: but, despite Lady Kingdom’s best efforts, and her placing herself firmly upon one of the damask-covered chairs, the formality of the occasion could not be properly adhered to because people kept being propelled into the dining room, by excitement, or by the crush of people. The noise of excited voices rose and rose as sailing time approached.

‘What an extraordinary thing, for them to come to say goodbye to Edward!’ whispered Lucretia to Augusta and Alice. ‘An honour to our family indeed.’

‘I think, Mamma,’ said Augusta sourly, as Ralph took Mary’s hand and then turned to Harriet and bent towards her, ‘that Lord Kingdom has developed an interest in Harriet.’